Husband guilty of killing Vodafone executive wife after affair

A jealous husband who stabbed his Vodafone executive wife to death after she
had an affair has been found guilty of manslaughter.

After Sally Sinclair admitted her infidelity, her husband Alisdair attacked her in the kitchen of their £1 million country home near Amport, HantsPhoto: PA

By Murray Wardrop

4:10PM GMT 29 Oct 2009

Alisdair Sinclair, 48, launched a “sustained and ferocious attack” on his wife Sally, 40, moments after she confessed that she was cheating on him.

Mrs Sinclair, who was head of business analysis at the mobile phone giant, had tried to divert her husband’s suspicions by claiming she was a lesbian.

But he confronted her on August 16 after finding a handwritten love letter by his wife to a male colleague which read: “I lust after you.”

Sinclair’s suspicions had also been heightened after he found new underwear his wife had bought before going on an overnight business trip.

Mrs Sinclair had filed for divorce in July and the murder took place on the day that he was due to officially respond to her request.

After she admitted her infidelity, Sinclair attacked her in the kitchen of their £1 million country home near Amport, Hants.

The killing was witnessed by two children, who were in the house, as Sinclair repeatedly stabbed her with up to six different kitchen knives while she begged for mercy.

A jury of five men and seven women convicted Sinclair of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility and cleared him of murder after deliberating for seven hours.

Jurors heard that during the attack, Mrs Sinclair pleaded with her husband, screaming: “No Alisdair, please don’t do this, I’ll stop all of this from happening.”

Sinclair was heard to have replied: “It’s too late for that now.”

Sinclair, who had given up work almost 10 years previously to become a house husband, later handed himself in to police and claimed he had acted in self-defence.

Officers forced their way into the secluded property and found Mrs Sinclair lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen, surrounded by bloodstained knives, some of which were broken.

She had suffered more than 30 knife wounds, including one including horrific injury to her neck caused by a sawing action that damaged her spinal cord.

Sinclair told jurors that after his wife admitted having an affair, he ran at her, but she armed herself with a knife and stabbed him.

He said that they fought each other with knives but his wife fell to the floor “like a stone” after he inflicted a large cut to her throat.

Sinclair said he had no recollection of causing the numerous other knife wounds but admitted in evidence that his actions “went beyond self defence”.

During the trial the court heard that Sinclair was clinically depressed with obsessive compulsive traits and an overwhelming desire for order which led to excessive cleanliness and the hoarding of clothes, CDs and the buying of expensive sports cars.

The jury accepted by finding him guilty of manslaughter by diminished responsibility that he was mentally ill and that substantially impaired his criminal culpability.